Songwriter

How to spell songwriter

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce songwriter

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does songwriter mean?

1. nounA person who composes the words and music of songs.

Songwriter in a sentence

• The songwriter spent months crafting lyrics for the new album.

• As a professional songwriter, she earns royalties every time a track is streamed.

Where does songwriter come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent English compound, built from two very old native words. 'Song' descends from Old English 'sang', a noun tied to the verb 'singan' (to sing), and it goes back to the same Germanic root that gave German 'Sang'. 'Writer' comes from Old English 'writere', formed from 'writan' (to write), which originally meant to scratch or carve marks into a surface before it came to mean putting words on a page. The two were joined to name a person who composes the words and music of songs, a usage that became common in the twentieth century with the rise of popular music and the publishing trade. Because both halves are ordinary words an adult writes daily, the only spelling care needed is keeping it as one solid word with no gap and no hyphen.

How the word is built

• song (a sung musical piece)
• write (to compose)
• -er (one who does)